Rabbits in the Garden

Two rabbits come into my garden to eat every evening - which is making me feel a little like Mr. McGregor chasing Peter Rabbit.

The other evening I looked out our bedroom window and there they were: one in the midst of the cabbage plants, the other nibbling on the tender young pepper plants. Putting on my flip-flops, I rushed out the front door, ran along the newly seed lawn, sped along the side of the house, and then sprinted full-out to the garden, clapping my hands and yelling, 'Hey! Hey!' The rabbit in the cabbage plants calmly watched my approach, not bothering to stop chewing until I was about five feet away. Then, quickly turned around, only to slowly hop out the garden as though saying, 'Man, what a drag, Mr. McGregor! We're not eating that much!' The other one, which was working on my pepper plants, pealed out with a far greater sense of urgency - nearly matching my sense of frustration.

Maybe it was the fact that, at 10:30 at night a balding, somewhat overweight man in running shorts and an old tattered *M*A*S*H* tee shirt was running at them acting like a lunatic, maybe it was a sense of impending doom, maybe there was the realization of not wanting to be there when the ambulance with the nice little men with the oversized coat with long wrap-around arms showed up to pick me up, I'm not sure . . . but, whatever the reason, they both sprinted across the road and I was just left there steaming. I was Elmer Fudd - and Bugs Bunny had just left me in the dust hollering, "You wrascally wrabbits!!"

Returning to our bedroom, Nancy urged me not to use my pellet gun to dispatch them next time (probably envisioning me shooting at the rabbits from our bedroom window) and encouraged me to seek a more peaceable solution. "Darn it!, I thought, "This Christianity thing really gets in the way when really all that I want to do let out some of the frustration . . . . through the barrel of a gun!" Thank God for Nancy - and God help Nancy, for she's the one who speaks reason to me when all I hear in my minds are ways to 'get even'. "You wrascally wrabbits!!"

But then, isn't that basically how wars start? Isn't that how feelings get hurt? Isn't that how dissension is sown? Someone perceives a wrong being done them, acts upon it without hint of thought or grace and, what once was an innocent enough transgression, has now become a nuclear event. 'I'll show you' is lived out on the road, across the oceans, in the midst of national governments, even, potentially, from the window of a bedroom. And, who is really served by such behaviors?

I cannot imagine what my neighbors must think of me, though really I'm not too sure I really care . . . after all, it was my garden that the rabbits were in, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't a Christian evangelical message they got that night. On the other hand, it is people like me who are the very reason Jesus came to earth: that the rest of the world know that not all God's people act like me. Thank God!

Sometimes a little righteous indignation can go a long way and not every rabbit must die for my garden to live, yet . . . would God miss just these one or two rabbits? Would God miss me if others thought the same of me? It's something to ponder while I stand guard on the borders . . . of my garden, that is. Have a great day!